Silent Dream
by Ellenka
Summary: dead & archived
1. Staying Behind

**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything you recognize, from THG or elsewhere.

**A/N:** This is a companion piece to my story Silent Lips, attempting to fill in the missing scenes from Gale's POV. May make some sense without having read that first, just note it diverges from the canon by leaps and bounds whenever Everthorne is concerned.

**Warnings:** Fanservice. Angst. F-bombs and others. Discontinued for now, you know how it ends, I don't know how I got there.

* * *

><p><strong>THG1: <strong>**Staying Behind**

They are going to take _her _away. They are going to take her _away_.

She is still here, behind the closed door in the Justice Building, but the Capitol has already claimed her, and I'm waiting to say goodbye.

_Hopefully, not forever_.

* * *

><p>It's not like I've expected any reprieve from the Capitol, nothing, never. But still, I dared to hold onto that stupid, foolish hope that she, Katniss Everdeen, my Catnip, is beyond their reach, too good, too damn <em>sacred<em> for them to lay their dirty hands on.

But she'd thought the same about her sister, and my hope was gone the moment Effie Trinket pulled that one single _effing_ slip of paper with the name Primrose Everdeen from the reaping ball. Even without looking at her, I knew Katniss would rush in to take Prim's place, and no force in this world could stop her.

After her desperate scream rang through the square and pierced my heart, deadly like one of her arrows, all I could do was to drag the hysterical Prim away, and let Katniss march forward. Our gazes met, only for the fraction of a second, but we've never needed more than that to communicate the most important information. However gladly I would follow her to the Arena and protect her until death, I knew that she'd never forgive me for volunteering.

Not if the odds chose me to stay behind, to take care of Prim in her absence.

For the first time ever, I almost believed that my forty-two slips may turn the odds in my favor.

I damn well knew that I should be wishing for a chance to stay and support both our families, but the very idea of letting Katniss into the worst hell ever, without me to guard her back, was too horrible, too unbearable to let me think properly.

Hearing my name in that annoying Capitol accent would bring some kind of sick relief, but it never sounded. Effie called Peeta Mellark. I could still shout my name myself; volunteer to take my proper place beside Katniss. But the memory of the expression in her eyes just before she turned to face her doom, the look that entrusted her most precious treasure to my care, forced me to bite my tongue.

So instead of me, Peeta Mellark walked up to the stage like a lamb to slaughter.

_Not a threat. Not to her._

The kid's been staring at Catnip ever since I can remember, but never leering, never catcalling, never nudging other guys and pointing where he shouldn't, so I didn't even bother to teach him the basic life lesson that too much staring at Katniss Everdeen might result in a black eye.

But as he shook her hand, something strange flickered on her face. Suddenly, I hoped that she at least wouldn't have to kill him herself. Not a district partner, nobody would want to live with that.

She shouldn't _have to_ kill anyone for the Capitol's sick entertainment, full stop.

* * *

><p>The door opens for the last time and Madge Undersee walks out, with moist eyes and without that shiny golden pin. She'd cut the line right after Prim and Mrs. E had been escorted out in tears, and I was too preoccupied with them to argue.<p>

Now I just brush past her without sparing her another thought.

_Why should I? She isn't going anywhere_.

Then the door slams behind me, and a second later I'm holding Catnip in my arms, desperate to keep her there forever, and she clings to me as if she wanted me to. I'm talking, but I'm not actually listening to myself and neither is she. Katniss can take care of herself just fine, she's strong enough, and all I can say to try and encourage her is bullshit anyway. It's just hunting, but we both know well enough it isn't, we've seen what it does to kids who end up there, and even the best hunters are just game to the Capitol.

But I have to tell her to come back, whatever it takes.

And one more thing to remember, one more thing to take with her. I can only hope it won't be a burden.

I cup her face in my hands and tell her I love her, because I have to do it, at least once.

_I should have done it million times before_.

Her eyes widen, shocked and somehow contrite.

_No, I shouldn't have_.

She fumbles for words for a few moments, and I almost wish I could take mine back, not to leave her confused about what she has to leave behind.

Then, to _my_ surprise, she silently presses her lips against my cheek, her eyes brimming with too much emotion to read.

The trace of her kiss burns on my face, and new resolve burns in her eyes and fills me with hope I hardly dared to entertain before.

_Why now, when it might be all for nothing?_

Seconds later, the Peacekeepers come to drag me away, too many to fight against, and they get a real kick out of it. More than one to be exact, but now with the door slammed shut between me and my Catnip, I'm too numb to care.


	2. Shining Brightly

**THG 2: ****Shining Brightly**

The chariot rides are beginning.

Soon, I'll be able to see her again.

That's right. By the fucking infinite mercy of our oppressors, I'll be allowed to watch the girl I love on the big screen in the middle of the town square, paraded like a ritual sacrifice through the Capitol, while these monsters in artificial skin gawk at her from the streets and leer and catcall and point.

And I can't reach and hurt them, however much I'd want to.

The wait is excruciating, but finally, she appears.

_Best for the last_.

My Catnip.

She is beautiful. Radiant. Ardent.

I almost resent the stylists for creating an outfit to match her spirit, for letting everyone see her the way I've seen her for so long.

But I withhold my judgment, because being perceived for what she truly is could help her now.

_Let them see that she shines brightly enough to burn them all_.

* * *

><p>Days pass, quick and exhausting.<p>

All the work I used to share with Katniss mercilessly reminds me of her absence, but leaves me with mercifully little energy to dwell on it. The quietest times are the hardest. Like in school, when I'm not fortunate enough to fall asleep, and spend the lectures on the properties of coal and history of Panem lost in daydreams about Katniss instead. More tempting and harrowing than ever, now that she has slipped so much further beyond my grasp than every time she'd decided to retreat into her cold and stubborn shell.

On my way to the next class, I peer into the cafeteria, trying to catch at least a glimpse of her - like used to do every day, since our lunch periods don't coincide. I do it even now that she's gone, ingrained habits die hard.

_No, Catnip is still not there_.

Madge Undersee is sitting alone at their usual table. Sure enough, her stupid five slips have been irrelevant… not compared to my forty-two, or to Katniss' twenty… but to Prim's _one_.

The odds have decided to spit in my face in much crueller way than I imagined possible.

_It's not even her fault_.

And now she's sitting there, staring at Catnip's empty seat, carelessly dressed and ashen faced. Looking small and forlorn, almost like Prim when she glances towards the _second_ unoccupied spot at their dinner table.

She's lost a friend too. Looks like we all have something to lose.

Shaking my head slightly and moving away from the door, I tacitly acknowledge my luck that no one can catch _me_ staring at Catnip's empty place on our rock.

And if someone accidentally did, I could shoot them.

* * *

><p>Now I wish I could shoot Mellark. Or at least give him that black eye.<p>

Enemies in the Capitol are not to be underestimated, not even if they've been shipped there from Twelve just few weeks ago.

When Katniss returned to her seat after her interview, I let myself zone out.

_I got to look at her_._ Again_.

Catnip.

Alive and relatively well, impossibly beautiful in that ridiculous jeweled dress, and acting so unlike herself I settled for drinking in the image of her face and watching her lips move under that completely unnecessary layer of some sparkly color.

I closed my eyes, her face still burned into my lids.

Then Rory nudged me with his elbow.

"Hey, Mellark says he has a crush."

"What?" I mutter, my eyes snapping open.

I shouldn't give a damn for that miserable almost-dead boy's crush. I could just be sorry. Not like _he_ deserved this shit either.

That is, if said crush didn't happen to be Katniss Everdeen.

Mellark doesn't even really know her, and he just thoughtlessly hit the most vulnerable spot in her armor.

_Yeah, screwed odds are screwed_.

And I'm screwed too, because I can't help but study her face, comparing her reaction to the moment in some different life, when I'd told her I loved her in the Justice Building. Maybe just as selfishly, but at least it wasn't public.

One never knows with that girl, especially now that some Capitol paint distorts her features under the stage-lights.

All I know is that she doesn't let people down.

Not the people she cares about.

Could she care for him?

If she did, he just gained the best possible ally, and judging by the audience going crazy, a damn good angle too.

* * *

><p>But now it doesn't seem to matter anymore.<p>

The Games are on.

Mellark has joined the Careers - gotta admit it was a cool move, but what the hell?_ If he was just shitting her to throw her off, and managed to get back_._.. _I'd better not think about that.

Katniss has scored a backpack and a knife, managed to sprint away from the Cornucopia unharmed, and disappeared into the woods.

Safe from other tributes, but at the verge of exhaustion and dehydration, she keeps trudging and stumbling in circles, no matter how many times I shout the right direction on the screen, black spots dancing in front of my eyes, and curse our useless victor/mentor Haymitch to hell and back for not sending her anything.

In the end, she collapses right at the edge of a muddy pool, and just manages to gather her wits enough to purify the water and drink.

Only then, I remember to drink myself.

* * *

><p>Katniss has hardly regained her strength, when the wildfire comes. She runs and dodges, but then a fireball strikes too close, and her leg bursts into flames.<p>

Now she's the real Girl on Fire, engulfed not in the flashy blaze of her costume, but in fire that hurts and chokes and kills and threatens to take her away forever.

_No… she can't die… not like this..._

My eyes and lungs burn with her, since I forgot how to blink and to breathe, and my nails dig into my palms until she quenches the flames in another pond.

Even with her temporarily safe, I can't take it anymore.

Moments after the mandatory viewing ends and the electricity in our district dies with it, I rip through the door without saying a word to anyone, and soon find myself crashing through the dark forest, snarling curses in all directions and imagining vapid Capitol faces enjoying _her_ suffering plastered on everything that gets under my fists.

When I finally lose steam and collapse onto the ground, I realize how strange and foreign the forest seems now.

The prolonged absence of one girl, of my Catnip, has transformed the vast freedom into an endless void. The loneliness of the very first months I'd spent here after my father's death rushes back in an icy flood, and the once comforting silence, robbed of the almost imperceptible rustle of her breath and the quiet rhythm of her heartbeat, rings dull and hollow in my ears.

I miss her like a better part of myself.

Slowly, I drag my aching body up, my head still spinning, trying to hold onto a simple set of obligations that bind me to sanity like links of a chain.

_Don't you fucking dare to fall apart._

_You have to stay strong._

_For your family. For Mrs. E. For Prim._

_For Catnip_.

She may still need me WHEN she returns.

And until then, I have to take care of everything as well as I can.


	3. Precious Flowers

**THG 3: ****Precious Flowers**

The next day, when I bring some food over to the Everdeens, Prim removes the makeshift bandages I'd wrapped around my hands, dutifully cleans the abrasions on my knuckles and pulls out the last deeply embedded splinters of bark.

"You wouldn't prevent them from hurting her by hurting yourself," she says, soothingly running her fingers over my undamaged skin.

I can't bring myself to answer, but at least have enough decency to look contrite. My hands are stiff and aching, but functional. Better not contemplate what would happen if I'd managed to break something with one wrong blow. Fortunately, my rampant idiocy has gone more or less unpunished.

"She will make it, Gale. You have to believe in her."

And now Prim thinks she has to reassure me. Fucking wonderful job I'm doing here.

"I do, Prim. Trust me, I wouldn't doubt her for a second… but, that doesn't make it any easier to watch her suffer."

I know she feels the same about it, but she's taking it better than I could've hoped. She stares me down with those big soulful eyes for a few more moments before nodding slightly and lowering her gaze back to my hands.

By the time she finishes wrapping them in clean gauze, the Capitol anthem announces the mandatory viewing, so I just wearily sink onto the Everdeen's threadbare couch, bracing myself for whatever is to come and silently pledging not to let my nerves snap again.

_Catnip can't run from the Arena. She has to endure everything there. I can't run from watching, then._

This time, it's the Career pack with Mellark – _why the hell can't I entirely associate him with them? _– forcing Katniss to seek refuge high in a tree.

Mrs. E, who looked livelier than I can remember just few moments ago, has retreated to her bed instead of the couch. While her daughter painstakingly drags herself up the tree, she inches towards the wall, eyes wide, and finally curls into a ball and hides under the covers as Katniss attempts to saw through the branch with the deadly tracker jacker nest.

Prim stops me before I can rise to go to her. She remains focused on the screen, on Katniss.

"I tried… tried every day… but… she won't come round. I think it reminds her of the waiting for… for…" Prim's voice falters, but she doesn't need to say anymore. The _waiting for…_ remains forever engraved in my memory. Our fathers had been trapped beyond help, and all we could do was to wait for good news that never came, and the agony was crushing. So crushing Mrs.E has never entirely recovered from it.

Now Katniss is trapped beyond our help in the Arena, and we are forced to witness her struggle and wait for whatever the odds have in store for her. It messes with my own head so damn much I would refrain from blaming Mrs. E for her relapse, if it didn't mean she leaves Prim virtually alone when she needs company the most.

"Do you want to come over to our place?" I ask her.

"No… I'm afraid to leave her here on her own," she whispers.

"Then I'll stay here with you every day, okay? Or you can both come over, if you wanted."

However much self-control it takes, I have to keep my head level for Prim.

In order not to scare her with my own outbursts, I settle for scowling quietly, adding every second of pain Katniss has to endure to the endless list of Capitol's crimes.

* * *

><p>Luckily enough, Prim mostly keeps her wide blue eyes fixed on the screen whenever we watch together, her delicate fingers clutching my wrist so tightly it almost hurts. She hides her face in my shoulder when Cato slashes Mellark's leg, trembles when Katniss stumbles away in tracker jacker induced delirium, smiles when she allies with Rue (<em>does Prim see the eerie resemblance to herself?<em>) and cheers when she destroys the Career's supplies (_that's my Catnip!_).

But before they meet again, Rue falls into the Careers' trap and Katniss rushes in too late, only to see the spear pierce her helpless little ally, and to shoot an arrow through the perpetrator's throat. Tears stream down Prim's face faster than I can wipe them away, and my heart is torn between grief for Rue and concern for the pain etched so plainly on Katniss' face as she kneels by her impaled body. And anger, anger at anyone who had anything to do with putting them there.

When Rue breathes her last wish, Katniss looks surprised for a moment, but then clears her throat and begins to sing, and old lullaby I've heard a thousand times, but it's never sounded so beautiful.

As Katniss pauses to draw breath before the second verse, Prim turns to me with a look so questioning I can't deny her an answer.

"I've never heard her sing," I choke out, in an embarrassing tiny voice I wouldn't want anyone else to hear. I silently beg her not to ask anymore, because I don't trust myself to squeeze one more word out.

But Prim only nods, as if it explained everything, and focuses back on her sister.

Katniss has always carefully weighed every word... but now she's singing, her voice gaining volume and clarity with every note, soaring high and _free_. Witnessing the moment feels almost like a sacrilege, because she's not singing for the cameras, not for the Gamemakers, not for the audience.

She's defying them all to honor the brave little girl dying in her arms.

Slowly, I slip my fingers from Prim's slackened grip and move forward to kneel in front of the TV, drawn by some weird power. Her presence in the tones flowing from the speakers is so vivid I almost believe that if I stretched my hand, I could touch _Catnip_, not just the hard lifeless screen projecting her stolen image.

She's singing impossibly far away and not for me, but reaching so deep into my soul it _hurts_, with pain sweeter and more excruciating than any she has unwittingly caused me before.

… _here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true…_

The hope for a better world, so bright and shining and _burning_, permeates every perfect tone and reflects in the depths of Rue's eyes before their light fades like a blown candle. The Capitol has claimed her life... but not her spirit.

… _here is the place where I love you_.

I bow my head and close my eyes for a moment, and allow myself to believe that the power of her song will make all dreams come true.

As Katniss decks Rue with flowers and washes her with pearly tears, the mockingjays that have gathered around repeat her melody and spread it in the wind, wings gleaming golden in the setting sun.


	4. Heart Attack

**HG4: ****Heart Attack**

The Hunger Games subject the tributes (and the unwilling audience in their home districts) to all kinds of torture.

Catnip has almost collapsed of thirst, almost burned and choked to death, almost succumbed to tracker jacker venom. She has killed too, and when I saw the horror in her eyes after she shot Marvel, her first much-too-real victim, I knew it hurt her more than her own suffering, and hoped against all hope she wouldn't have to do it again.

Now, I should be relieved.

She is sheltered near a water source, far from other tributes, out of immediate danger for the time being… just flustered and embarrassed and uncomfortable… and poised for flight that is, under the circumstances, impossible.

The new rule, declaring that two tributes from the same district can win, has bound her to Mellark even more securely than the life-debt she believed herself to owe him after he'd interfered between her and Cato.

During the announcement, the camera focused right on Katniss, capturing the succession of emotions on her face in perfect detail: surprise giving way to comprehension that brought a fleeting glimpse of relief. After her reaction to Mellark's name being pulled, I'd hoped she wouldn't have to kill him herself, and now that the danger had been averted, my worries alleviated for about half a second.

Then her features set into an expression of steely resolve, and I gave myself a mental kick for underestimating the enemy.

_No, you idiot, the worst times are only beginning_.

Your Catnip just rushed off, determined to save him. Given his state, it's not good news.

Especially because I know her well enough to assume she'll do whatever it takes.

Even if it were to kill her.

* * *

><p>So far, though, it obviously takes <em>kissing<em> him.

The intense fear for Catnip's life in the past few days has driven all thoughts of the stupid star-crossed lovers act from my mind, but now that Mellark was kind enough to remind her, everything rushes back with vengeance.

_Obviously_ it takes kissing him.

They have to pay for the rule change by providing some extraordinary entertainment.

Now Mellark appears expectant and hopeful, and Catnip seems just about to bite the bullet, and there's nothing I can do but _watch_.

Watch Catnip's first kiss.

_Kill. Me. Now_.

* * *

><p>Catnip's first kiss.<p>

Over the past year, I must have imagined it a thousand times, in a thousand different scenarios. None of them featured the Arena, cameras; romance scripted for Capitol's perverted amusement… or Mellark… or the regret shining in Catnip's eyes. The only aspect of the scene that fits, and that makes it real enough to rip my heart out, is the expression on her face.

On a few occasions, that I treasure in my memory, I've seen similar endearing discomfort and abashment on her features. Resisting the temptation to heighten it, and deciding to wait _just a little longer, just to make sure she's ready _every single time required all my self-control, and maybe claimed a tiny bit of my sanity as well. But in deference to her confused, tentative feelings, I preferred melting her icy shell with endless patience. Shattering her defenses with a blow that could crush whatever relationship we had would be unacceptable… and unnecessary.

Like a naive idiot, I believed I had all the time in the world to win her affection, that nothing unexpected could steal her away. Then the fateful Reaping happened, and I had to at least _tell her_, and she touched her lips to my cheek, which was so much more than I hoped for and so much less than I could live with.

Then she was gone, and I finally realized that Capitol can really take everything and everyone, every single fucking thing that makes life worth living.

Now, my Catnip is far beyond the screen, and I can't even save her… not from half-conscious Mellark, not from the Capitol cameras, greedy to steal and defile a moment that shouldn't happen anywhere within their reach.

_Or anywhere near Mellark_.

With the same look of determination she wore while searching for him and dressing his wounds, Catnip leans over… and they start kissing.

For a few moments, the complete and utter _wrongness_ of the situation wipes my mind blank. Then a jumble of rage and despair and hurt and jealousy hits me like a bomb. My fists clench on their own accord, so tightly the joints creak and Prim whips her head around to stare at me. Despite my best efforts, the mess I'm feeling must show on my face, because her eyes widen in concern.

"Gale? Are you alright?"

Biting my lip almost hard enough to draw blood and swallowing words I definitely shouldn't say aloud in front of her, I force myself to nod. She is clever enough to know how fake it is, but doesn't press the point and politely averts her eyes.

When the anthem finally releases us, I just throw a hasty _goodnight_ over my shoulder, already on my way out of the door.

* * *

><p>On top of everything, I feel an almost nauseating wave of guilt for failing Prim again, but I knew too well that nothing I could say would make it better, and don't risk screwing up and making things worse.<p>

I take the longest possible detour home, in a vain attempt to clear my head.

_How could I, when Catnip is still cooped up with that cave with Mellark?_

My knuckles are healing quite well, but hitting things is no longer an option.

_Why, Catnip is alive and relatively well… just kissing another guy so that they can both survive…_

Too bad reasoning doesn't seem to do the trick well enough.

_Catnip is… just kissing another guy…_

I wish I could get hammered like Haymitch to forget the image at least for a few hours, but our resources are too thin to be wasted on drowning my misery.

_Catnip is… just…_

Okay, I can at least kick at this rock…

_Why the hell does it have to hurt so damn much?_

* * *

><p>Another day, another episode of Star-crossed Romance Games.<p>

Gritting my teeth almost to the breaking point, and hating the Capitol with more passion than ever for every single obstacle they'd put in her way felt easier than coping with this.

_Damn, why so jealous?_

Nobody cares what I think. I'm not in the Arena with her.

_Oh, how I wish I was_.

Bringing pieces of wood over to the Everdeens' and carving them with my hunting knife to give some safe and immediate release to my feelings helps a little. I keep telling myself the kids would appreciate some new toys, but the things I hack out of the wood in my anger always end up too damn ugly for them to see.

And things can still get worse.

When Katniss tells Peeta _I love you_, the knife slips in my suddenly numb fingers and scratches a long gash into my left hand. I barely notice.

_Could I say it didn't compare to the wound in my heart?_

Only if it didn't sound so damn stupid.

And if the strongest and most definite thing I'm feeling right now wasn't... surprise?

I know Catnip. She weighs every word, and prefers to stay silent if she is unsure of what to say.

She wouldn't say _those three words so _lightly. Or so easily. Or so... numbly.

The sheer amount of _nothing_ behind her "confession" perplexed me even more than the fact that she voiced it. It sounded like a line out of a play, maybe perfectly rehearsed in her mind but imperfectly delivered. If she changed the name at the end, she could have said it to anyone... to everyone... even to _me_. Suddenly, I no longer mind that she hadn't answered me back in the Justice Building.

Something tells me that the shy, chaste, silent caress she gave me meant much more.

Then she leans down to _kiss his lips,_ and I think I catch a glimpse of quiet remorse in her eyes. After a mercifully short time, she gets up to retrieve a parachute, arriving as if to reward her for the effort, and her remorse gives way to relief.

Now I wish for her return more than ever, if at all possible, hoping against all hope to learn what is it supposed to mean.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Prim's lips curling into an almost imperceptible smile. Then she glances in my direction and her eyes widen at the sight of my hand, blood still seeping from the cut I'd completely forgotten about.

She gently touches my arm and wakes me from my trance.

"C'mon. You are bleeding all over the place."

"Sorry," I mutter, following her to the kitchen.

"Shouldn't I tell you the same?" she sighs.

Looking into the angelic face, the face that would have been bloodied and mangled weeks ago if it wasn't for her sister's sacrifice, I feel more ashamed than ever for adding to her troubles instead of relieving them.

"What? How can you even say that, Prim?"

"She went there instead of _me_."

"Prim, she loves you more than anything in the world, and you deserve that and so much more. I knew she would do everything to protect you... and now she would probably kick me for being a nuisance to you."

She smiles slightly.

"Scratch that probably," I add, drawing a laugh from her.

"Don't worry about it. Healing is what I do…" she says, seriously again, and hesitates a little. "And I can tell how much this hurts you."

_Talk about obvious_.

"It shouldn't matter if it hurts me or not." Saying it aloud might actually get the message through my own thick skull. "As long as it hurts her less. I just…" my voice almost gives up. "I just wish she would come back." Biting my lip hard, I add, "Whatever it takes."

"She will come back," Prim assures me, so firmly I would believe her even if I didn't want to.

As she finishes bandaging my hand, I find myself wishing I could ask her opinion on what Katniss might be thinking, but how could I possibly phrase a question along the lines of '_well, do you think I'll still_ _have a chance with her _when_ she comes back'_ without sounding like a complete jerk?

And a monstrously selfish one at that.

* * *

><p>According to the latest Capitol news, I'm not only a selfish jerk, I'm Catnip's <em>cousin<em>. Obviously, the hyenas with cameras have announced their arrival into our neck of the woods, and apart from Prim, Mrs. E and Madge, I ended up being the best candidate for an interview. In order not to cast a shadow of suspicion upon the famous star-crossed lovergirl, some genius, maybe even Haymitch himself, came up with a plan to write me off as her cousin.

Well, he's seen us together at the Hob often enough, and maybe he fears I'd be too much competition for the almost-frosted-to-death Peeta.

_Thanks a fucking million_, _man_.

The rumor spreads like fire through the coal-dusted hellhole we live in, and the idea that I should be actually grateful for that, since it reduces the chances of bursting the romantic bubble and hurting Katniss in the process, makes me sick.

_I don't want to be Catnip's cousin_.

But if it can help her, I have to go along with it.

_How I wish I could help her by tearing the Capitol, or at least the Arena, down with my bare hands_.

But no. All I can do is to pretend to be her cousin in front of the cameras.

_My fucking luck_.

* * *

><p>Unfortunately, some members of the audience obviously consider said rumors to be more than encouraging.<p>

Just now, one of them invades my personal space with a smile and batting of eyelashes. I vaguely remember dating her some two years ago, when I was clueless enough to believe that, given enough distractions, I can live with Catnip being just my best friend and a clever hunting partner.

Bad mistake. Catnip is so much more than I could ever imagine.

"Hey, I didn't know you were really her cousin," the girl whispers. I vaguely remember her name, and maybe she's tried to remind me a while ago, but Catnip's voice keeps singing in my head, and I didn't exactly bother to listen. Catnip eclipses all other girls even as a memory or a fantasy or something in between.

"Me neither," I squeeze through gritted teeth.

"Wanna celebrate the good news?" Hard to tell if she misinterpreted my words by choice or by accident, but I don't care.

She's not Catnip and she's too damn close for comfort.

"I wouldn't call it good news. Sorry."

Backing further towards the wall, I lightly bang my head against the concrete, desperate to jolt myself back into reality; preferably a reality where _Catnip has _decided to corner me in a dark and deserted hallway after everyone else disappeared into classrooms.

Too bad that would be a _dream_.

This girl is not Catnip, and I wish it was her fault so that I could hate her for it.

I do anyway.

But despite her seductively curved lips and wandering hands, I'm not sinking low enough to pour my misery into her, not now, not ever, so I push her aside as gently as I can bring myself to, and dash out for a breath of cool air.

* * *

><p>On Saturday, Madge Undersee is looking somewhere beyond me as if it was my damn fault I'm not Katniss, and it feels so refreshing I'd smile at her if I could remember how to.<p>

"Any luck so far?" she asks softly, after shifting her gaze from the empty air at my shoulder to my face.

"You don't get many lucky coins in the Seam," I say, hoping that the mixture of accusing and apologetic would somehow come off as neutral, and handing her my part of the district sponsor collection. "But we all threw in what we could afford." Or more, but she doesn't need to know that.

"Anything can help their chances. I fared better in the Town... and added all money I had available."

"Thank you." To my own surprise, the words come out naturally, before I as much as think about them. Good, because she deserves them, at least twice. "And you've already given her the pin. Why?" Maybe selling it could have made a difference in the collection.

"The Capitol deserved to see it. And Katniss does it justice," Madge says with a wan, cryptic smile and I find myself nodding.

Remembering Catnip's song, I can't help but think it made a much bigger difference in the Arena. The golden mockingjay. Just perfect.

"She mocked them alright."

Madge's knowing smile widens a little.

"See you at the interview. You… know how much can depend on it, right?" she offers tentatively.

I shake my head in exasperation. "Too damn well. Thanks again," I say before turning away. "And sorry for... you know, everything," I finish lamely.

Madge shrugs and gives me a slight smile. "It's just the way it is, isn't it?"

I nod and start away.

What wouldn't i give to change it?

* * *

><p>I still can't really help Katniss, but the least I can do is to refrain from hurting her chances.<p>

They called my face camera-ready, which is probably an insult, but the red light is already on, and so is my attempt at a smile, fake like everything but my desire for Katniss to come home.

Let's see how the polite angle works for me.

_Hopefully, they won't focus on me too much_.

…

"And you must be Mr. Hawthorne, the favorite cousin of Miss Everdeen... ?"

"Sure."_ Sure as hell not. But I want her to come back. And preferably to stop acting as if she were my damn _cousin.

…

"Any guess how she acquired her impressive skills with the bow?"

"I have no idea, really. She is incredible at everything she does, though. Probably just picked up the bow in the training center and hit the mark spot-on." _Yeah, Catnip is bloody brilliant at hitting the mark spot-on even without knowing what she's actually shooting at._

…

"Did _you_ notice there was something going on between her and Mr. Mellark?"

"Well, I thought Peeta had a crush on her… but Katniss probably wasn't aware of it." _Catnip was unaware of more things than I'd like her to._

…

"So the change in the rules is most welcome, right?"

"Yeah, it would be wonderful if they both returned home." _I'd rather see her return with him than… no, I'm not even going there... even if they were to... No, I'm not going there either._

…

"So you are confident in their ability to win?"

"I believe they'll make it."_ I believe she'll make it. And drag him along… whatever it takes._

…

"But some of the competition still looks formidable, especially the tributes from District Two…"

"She can defeat anyone." _You'd better watch out, Capitol_.

…

"So you must be proud to be related to such a wonderful young lady, am I right?"

"Sure, being family with Katniss Everdeen is the greatest honor in all Panem." _Too bad I'm not anywhere near there yet, only in their lies, and the odds are not in my favor._

…

_Screw the odds_.


	5. Who's Coming Home?

**HG 5: ****Who's Coming Home?**

In my nightmares, Catnip is running and stumbling and burning and shooting and crying. Without a break, over and over again. Waking up to remember she is safely cooped up in the cave with _Mellark_ is almost a relief.

_Almost_.

She is still in the Games, but not dying, not murdering, not acutely suffering.

_What more could I want?_

With the dizzying effects of restless sleep messing with my willpower, I let myself desperately want a lot more. I want her to be home. Preferably right here in my arms.

_Yeah, 'cause that's bloody likely._

* * *

><p>After a few failed attempts to get back to sleep, I quietly rise and prepare to head back to the forest. Just as the first hint of sunrise illuminates the sky with a tantalizing shade of <em>her<em> fiery bodice, I slip under the quiet fence into my empty sanctuary. Only the memories of her linger, but their enchantment can never fade, and I almost believe she would be there if I turned my head and looked _just a little farther_.

She never is.

The Capitol has taken her away.

She is in the Arena. In the cave._ With Mellark_.

Sick with pent-up rage, I almost wish some stray mutt would attack me, so that I could really take out my frustration. And the pelt could provide for a good contribution to the money collection.

No such luck.

Only a few rabbits and squirrels run my way, and I constantly fail to shoot them through the eye, despite all the time I've devoted to target practice during the last few days.

* * *

><p>With the gore level down, Mrs. E is coming around nicely, sometimes even daring to venture to the couch to join me and Prim. Too bad I can't do what she'd been doing earlier and throw something over my head.<p>

Katniss plays the role of a caring girlfriend so convincingly I find it hard to watch. But whatever she does, I can't bring myself to avert my gaze from her face, to stop noting every detail, to stop trying to gauge her true feelings.

_Am I only imagining the secretive hint of sadness and longing carefully tucked away in the depths of her eyes?_

_And she gets that faraway look every time she turns away from him… as if she still missed something… someone…_

_Should I slap myself for being stupid and selfish enough to hope for anything beyond her return?_

I can't see her eyes as she kisses him.

_What is she really feeling?_

When she tricks him with the sleep syrup and rushes off to the Cornucopia to get medication to save him, I suspect the answer, despite all the hints that may have deceived me into thinking otherwise.

_Well, let me just say that if she gets hurt while trying to help him and he accidentally wins, he wouldn't have to worry about becoming an old drunk_.

But I want her to succeed and return safely, because that's what she wants. That's what she needs to survive the Games without losing her sanity. Heck, and Mellark deserves it for being there for her.

* * *

><p>Everything proceeds according to plan, until the maniacal girl from Two attacks her with knives.<p>

Mrs. E lets out a wild scream to match both her daughters', and I cover her eyes with my free hand and hold her upright to prevent her trembling form from falling to the floor.

But I can't bring myself to look away from the screen. Not for a second.

_Am I watching her last moments alive?_

Sitting here, with my teeth sinking into my lip and Prim's nails digging into my palm, I don't sense the slightest fraction of her physical pain, but I feel the knife sinking straight into my heart instead.

_The crazy little bitch is torturing her… torturing my Catnip and I can't do a single fucking thing about it…_

Mrs. E shivers in pure horror, Prim trembles with choked sobs, and I shake with desperate, impotent rage.

The feeling I hate most in the world.

_Leave my Catnip alone or…_

I exhale through gritted teeth.

…_or fucking nothing, because that's all I can do right now_.

Suddenly, Thresh swoops in, drags Clove off Catnip and bashes her head with a boulder.

_Thanks, man_.

It's a horrible, horrible thought but what else I have left?

It was Katniss or a stranger, and the true enemies are alive and well entertained. Them, we can't touch, we can only find brief, sick relief when they take that _someone else_.

Both Prim and I let out a breath, and Mrs. E pries my hand off to see her daughter alive after all.

Then Thresh holds the rock, still dripping with Clove's blood, above Catnip's head. Screams echo in my ears again.

_No!_

"Did you kill the little girl?" his voice thunders above her, dripping with menace.

_No, she didn't!_

"No!" Catnip pleadingly holds her hand up and gasps out what happened. He didn't see it, but he believes her.

* * *

><p>She returns to Mellark, injects him with the medicine, and passes out. When he wakes, he bandages her bleeding head with care and tenderness that should be reserved for…<p>

… _shut the fuck up, Hawthorne. You are not there with her._

I'm not there with her. He is. Trapped in the cave by the torrential rain, struggling to keep her alive, trying to give her all the comfort he can.

Even when Catnip suffers no acute pain to share, I have enough of my own.

_I guess I deserve it_.

Prim doesn't meet my eyes before I leave, and I couldn't be more grateful.

* * *

><p>The next day, Rory volunteers to make a trip to the Everdeens instead, and I gladly let him go. During the mandatory viewings, I sit on the floor, leaning against the wall, the couch blocking my view of the TV and devote myself to sharpening wooden arrows. They wouldn't do against the Capitol, but let the fool dream.<p>

_If I had any means to get her out…_

Mother gives me a disapproving frown, but makes no comment.

* * *

><p>The finale makes for a public spectacle, on the square.<p>

We are all in this together, rooting for our tributes. After an endless, excruciating night of listening to Cato's torture, and watching Catnip tremble atop the Cornucopia with Mellark, I believe I'm too numb to be surprised. _They will win, this will end… and whatever comes after, she will at least safely return home_...

New day dawns, and we gather to watch, just in time to see Catnip fire the last shot of the 74th Games, right through Cato's eye, ending the agony for him and everyone else.

Deadly silence pervades the Arena.

_What the hell? They won!_

No trumpets, just an announcement. The rule change has been revoked.

_Shit, did they come this far together just to…_

Katniss holds her bow at the ready, but falters as Peeta throws away the knife.

_What now?_

I know her well enough to realize she won't kill him. Not even if he begged her to.

_What is she thinking?_

When she holds out the berries, declaring that she would rather die than win without him, I'm afraid I know.

They hold hands, count to three and…

_Catnip, if you do it, I'll die right here and now, and Prim's gonna be pissed at us both. Just so that you know, it sure as hell doesn't matter._

… the berries pass her lips…

_No._

The trumpets blare.

They'll rather take two victors than none at all.

_Yes_.

She won. And defied the Capitol while she was at it.

_My Catnip is coming home_.

* * *

><p>Or, more precisely, Mellark's Katniss is coming home, and I wish I could hate him for it, but I can't, not really. In a way, he did save her.<p>

Maybe I could have killed everyone who stood in her way, me included, and saved her life, but she wouldn't appreciate that.

He killed the rules to save her sanity, and let her save both their lives, and it turned out better than anything I could have done for her.

She didn't need me there, and probably never will again.

_Hell, how I wish I could hate him for it._

Only when they appear onscreen again, all fixed and dolled up for the final interview, and she curls against him in that loveseat, the odd, hollow, misplaced look still visible under her darkened lashes, I do hate him.

So damn much I hate myself for it.

* * *

><p>Rory can't come over to the Everdeens, like he used to everyday since I decided that showing my face in front of Prim was no longer a good idea and let him take over. He supposedly got grounded for some petty schoolyard misdemeanor. <em>That's my brother<em>… I mean… serves him right. _For getting caught_.

So it's my turn again, and I arrive right in time for _just another rerun_.

"You look almost as if you no longer loved her," observes Prim when she catches me glaring daggers at the Victors of the 74th Hunger Games, Capitol's new favorite couple.

_I beg to differ._

Too bad that's what I've been doing all my life, and it never made the slightest bit of difference.

_I guess it's high time to stop begging and make them fucking listen._

After all, Catnip has managed to make them listen.

I force myself to turn towards Prim and the words spill out before I can stop them. "Prim, I will always love her. Even with Capitol-baked Peeta on her arm."

"Then be there for her when she returns," Prim says earnestly, as if she were talking about the application of some medicine. "She will need you."

Staring at Katniss sitting on that loveseat, cuddling with her _patient/burden/savior/lover?_, I find Prim's words that she would ever need _me_ again hard to believe, however much I wish them to be true.

"Do you really think so?"

"Yes," she says, her eyes shining with certainty, "she never looked at him like she always looked at you. You should know her best. Didn't you notice?"

"I thought I did. But towards the end, I began to suspect I've been imagining it."

"No, you weren't. She saved him, because that's what she does. You know very well she had to. But she is not herself when she is with him. She will need you to feel whole again. Help her heal, or you will lose her."

I raise my eyebrows. "Wouldn't you help her more?"

Prim smiles, then shakes her head. "I'll help in my own way. But not more."

_Damn. Looks like I'm getting relationship advice from a twelve year old. Can I blame Capitol for this one too?_

"How did you figure it out, Prim?"

"Mother says I am a born healer. I know what people need the most."

Heaving a defeated sigh, I manage to return her smile. "Yeah, that's exactly what you do, Prim. Thank you... for getting me through it..." After a moment of hesitation, I lean forward and press a chaste his into her hair.

She blushes and smiles wider. "Thank you, Gale. For everything."

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Mrs. E staring at us with a strange, wistful expression fixed on her face, and a hint of tears staining her cheeks.

* * *

><p>Catnip is home.<p>

Or at least I hope that the girl wearing a Capitol dress and Peeta Mellark attached to her hand is still her. Call me a coward, but I don't trust myself to face them both together in front of the reporters. Keeping at the back of the crowd, I assess the situation from afar, but her sharp eyes scan the faces until our gazes lock, and we both know everything we need the most.

_She is Catnip, and she still wants to meet me_.

With all the people here, one runaway cousin shouldn't be missed, so I turn on my heel with one, hopefully last, glance at their joined hands, and head to our place to wait for her like I did so many times before… out of habit, love, stubbornness, idiocy? Whatever.

But this time, I'm sure she'll eventually arrive. The fleeting second of eye-contact we shared sufficed to rekindle my hope, and it flares brighter than ever.

She may take long to arrive, but Catnip is worth waiting for.

* * *

><p>Finally, <em>she<em> is here, alone, alive and almost unchanged. All thoughts of the baker-boy, whose face I've seen in everything I hit since he dared to touch her, immediately vanish from my head. Every memory, every image from the Games pales in comparison to her, to _Catnip_, standing before me, real and whole and close enough to touch.

Her hair is gleaming in the twilight, and even with the traces of carelessly washed capitol goop smudging her face, the smooth perfection of her skin strangely contrasts with her old hunting outfit. Yet the very fact she is wearing it instead of some fancy rags from the Capitol proves how much she wants to return to everything she left behind.

_Do I dare to hope it includes me?_

Now she's stubbornly avoiding my eyes.

_Or did she come just to say goodbye?_

„Catnip..." I breathe out, almost fearing to believe I can call her that again. It's not like I've never sighed her name since her departure, but it seems to taste much sweeter when I can say it to her, and have her respond, even if she just tentatively meets my gaze and brushes her fingers over my lips to silence me.

_That touch alone was worth waiting for_.

"Shh. Not yet, Gale… please."

She looks timid, as if afraid of my reaction, but I never intended to be angry at her, and even if I did, I would've forgotten by now. But she's right anyway. _Better not talk and risk ruining the moment_. When I give her the silent nod she seemed to be waiting for, she collapses into my arms.

Embracing her closer than I've ever dared before, I somehow conquer the urge to cover every inch of her body with kisses and just _hold her_, forgetting everything, everything but the feel of _her_ in my arms, so fragile yet so strong, and the need radiating from her body as she clings to me. I don't want to release her and I don't really need her to explain anything.

_My Catnip is home, and she is all I need._


	6. Light In The Darkness

**CF 1: ****Light In The Darkness**

We file into the rickety elevator, and the doors close with an ominous clang.

_It all goes down from here_.

Now that I've finished school, my family could probably survive on my hunting and trading alone, even without taking Katniss' generously offered blood-money from the Capitol, but the Victors' exemption from district slave labor doesn't extend to fake cousins.

Guess I should be grateful for that _wonderful _opportunity not to blow our cover, but that doesn't mean I have to feel anything other than hatred for the idea of spending most of my life in the grave of our fathers. The school excursions that should have prepared me for this just gave me a head-start on resenting the musty, claustrophobic darkness.

_We must have passed right of Hell by now, and we are still going down…_

Catnip has returned home, and she still cares for my company, but I still can't be there for her most of the time, not since I have to spend six days a week either buried alive or reduced to a walking dead.

_Catnip…_

Now she is close, so close, but the creaking contraption keeps dragging me further away, down under countless feet of rock and coal and unsteady beams. After an eternity that seems longer every day, the elevator finally shudders to a halt and spits us out into the treacherous catacomb.

_Damn, they should have closed this place down so long ago. Is death out in the fresh air too much to ask for?_

Our lamps do little to diffuse the darkness, and everything around is black anyway. Everything but the golden memories I treasure in my mind like a token to get me through this.

_We sat down on our rock, and Katniss looked so out of it had to I reach out first, to assure her that she still can be herself with me, whoever she is now. Then I ran my fingers over the back of her hand to reassure myself that she isn't just a figment of my imagination, and she caught my hand and squeezed it and didn't let go. She's never done that before._

Now all I can do is hold my pickaxe, and wreak my vengeance for being separated from Catnip on the coal seam.

_When I told her there's nothing to forgive and all that matters is that she returned, she leaned her head against my shoulder, closing her eyes and looking so relieved and content I lost track of time watching her._

Now I'm leaning against the wall of the shaft to catch my breath, and seconds are crawling by, slow and dark and excruciating.

_Hating myself for disturbing her peace, I had to blurt out that she didn't mean her confession to _him_ and she flinched at that, but she didn't deny it and didn't want to talk about _him_, didn't say _he_ was better for her, didn't even let me finish when I summoned all my masochism and tried to imply he might be. Maybe just to hear it from her that he isn't?_

Now Mellark lives just one house down from her, sure available whenever she needs company, while I'm stuck here underground. I can't be near to help her recover from all the suffering, even though she said…

_I had to ask her how she was really feeling there, as if I believed my life to depend on the knowledge, and she bit her lip and struggled for words while I cursed myself thousand times over for pressuring her . Then she finally choked out "Incomplete. Because you haven't been there."_

Now the tables have turned, and the Capitol stole me away from her.

_Then I couldn't take it anymore and caught her face in my palms, gently like a fallen mockingjay fledgling, and pressed my lips against her forehead, because I needed to kiss her so badly it hurt, and wouldn't risk stepping too far out of line, and she slipped her fingers to my hair and held me close. We were complete together and everything was alright with the world._

Now she is far above the surface where I can't reach her, but the taste of her skin and the scent of her hair keep the choking coal-dust at bay until I can be with her again.

When my head lamp suddenly snuffs out the darkness presses in, so dense that shutting my eyes makes no difference, but I close them for a moment anyway, just to see _her _better.

* * *

><p>Fumbling blindly, I change the battery, and the lamp flickers back to life, illuminating nothing. A distant canary keeps singing in the gloom, but I can't wait to hear my mockingjay.<p>

Sunday, the only day when we can really meet, is still too damn far away.

* * *

><p>On Sundays, beyond the fence, the Girl on Fire shines for me, and she is brighter than the sun. Time passes too quickly as we move together through our forest, looking out for each other, and everything is like it used to be, but different, with the pain of recent separation bringing us closer instead of farther.<p>

Every time we meet, she greets me with an embrace that says _I don't want to be your cousin_ all too clearly, and she takes longer and longer to let go when we have to part.

The apprehension in her beautiful eyes makes my heart soar and break all at once. I hate seeing her afraid, but the certainty that she's not willing to leave me to the darkness always brings a wave of guilty elation. a few times I've even thought I'd glimpsed her following me on my way to the mines, but with the constant fatigue and amid the gloomy shadows of the Seam, I can't be sure and don't dare to ask.

When another Sunday comes and we finally meet, she just silently falls into my arms and offers no explanation.

* * *

><p>However much I don't want it to, the sun relentlessly dips below the horizon and we head back towards the fence. On impulse, I reach for Catnip's hand, still half-expecting her to flinch away, but she just intertwines our fingers together with a tiny smile, and I suddenly wish our forest would stretch on to cover the whole country.<p>

Of course it doesn't, and we stop our reluctant walk just under the eaves to share an embrace we wouldn't be able to afford in Panem. After a long while that still feels much too short, she lifts her head from my chest to look up.

Our gazes meet and her body trembles against mine, and the slight motion all but snaps my self-control.

"Gale, I think we should…" she begins, but I'm too mesmerized by watching her mouth move to really hear her words, and I don't need to anyway, because her expression clearly shows what she wants to say and what she wants to _do_, so I smash my lips against hers before she can voice a decision we'd both regret _now_. She returns my kisses with more heat and passion I've ever dared to hope for, and I lean back against a tree and lift her off the ground, so that she's nowhere but in my arms. I want to hold and protect her there forever. For the a few most precious minutes of my life, our hearts beat in unison, like burning wings carrying us away, to a place where we can be together and free.

Too soon, we pull apart, flushed and breathless, my head spinning. Reluctantly, I lower her feet to the ground, and she clings to me with desperate tenacity, as if she would tumble down when I released her. But then she looks up and the fear and regret in her eyes almost kill me. She lowers her lashes to hide it, but too late.

Gently, careful not to hurt her, I cup her cheeks in my hands and lean my forehead against hers, to anchor us together.

"I wish I could say I'm sorry, Catnip…" I whisper, breathing heavily and trying to prevent her scent, her delicate gasps brushing my face, her soft skin under my palms… from driving me completely over the edge. "But I'm not. I had to do it. Even if it was the last thing I'd ever do."

She struggles for words, but doesn't push me away, and finally whispers, _Gale, I wanted it too_, and my heart-rate jumps back to infinity per second, and I want to kiss her forever and beyond.

"But I don't want it to be the last thing you'd ever do, so we should better go," she continues, slowly pulling away, sorrow and longing etched plainly on her face.

_We should better go. That's what you wanted to say in the first place, didn't you, Catnip?_

The cold reality rushes in with overwhelming force as soon as she slips from my embrace and it feels more unbearable than ever before.

_Catnip, I'd much rather die than let you go, especially when you don't want me to._

But I know too well she wouldn't want to hear that.

Taking her hand in mine to relish the very last moments I can spend touching her before facing another six days of tantalizing memories and suffocating misery, I slowly lead her to the fence, even though every single instinct tells me to grab her and sprint in the opposite direction.


	7. Hope Is Forever

**CF 2: ****Hope Is Forever**

The bastards are taking Catnip away again.

To doll her up, to hang her back on Mellark's arm, to parade her around the Districts, to make her recite speeches as if she belonged to them, as if they could force her to condone their Games.

They are taking her away right now, and I can't do anything against it, especially not when I'm stuck down here in this musty, black grave. By the time the elevator finally exhumes me, she'd be long gone.

Gone right into the devilish trap from where no weapons but words can extricate her. In that disgusting web of theatrics and politics, every mistake can bring about catastrophe, and I could hardly help her even if I were able to follow.

She'll have to fend for herself, and I'll have to watch, just like _then_.

The sick certainty makes me want to do something, anything to get her out of their claws. Hell, if I had a weapon better than this goddamned pickaxe… I'd give them the last show they'd ever see.

But I don't, and whacking the coal seam with the useless piece of dented iron wouldn't help.

Not her, not me, not anyone.

* * *

><p>Too far beyond rescue, Catnip keeps playing on, making a grand appearance every few days.<p>

She's growing thinner even despite the good stuff they must be getting there, and heart-wrenching fatigue shows in the ashy depths of her beautiful eyes as she delivers her lines, and gives Mellark kisses that hurt more than ever, since I plainly see they don't make either of them any happier. Radiant in her absurd dresses and sparkly paint, she dutifully performs, charming and mollifying the audience, while her spirit keeps draining out her like the blood she'd spilled in the Games.

_What the hell are they doing to her? What is it that they aren't showing us?_

Even the darkness cut by weak lanterns and flashlight beams that I hate with all my soul suddenly feels friendly and safe in comparison with the spotlights of the Capitol.

My poor Catnip ended up in the worse place again.

* * *

><p>The huge screen in the town square forces us to an exclusive view of the stage where everything begins and ends.<p>

_Shit, I should have known it's not going to end well_.

Catnip is standing there, lost and stranded amid the gaping thousands and staring cameras. Tears are glistening in her eyes as Mellark sinks to one knee in front of her.

"Katniss Everdeen, will you marry me?"

The question crackling from those damned speakers in someone else's voice is one of my worst nightmares coming true… and the Capitol horror-factory broadcasts it for _everyone_ to see.

"Yes."

Her tiny strained answer hits me like a falling prop-beam down in the mines, and knocks the breath out of me. Catnip just agreed to marry Mellark in front of the whole nation.

_Katniss Everdeen agreed to marry Peeta Mellark_.

The shock makes all rational thought nearly impossible, but I'm pretty damn sure those words shouldn't belong to the same sentence. At least I _was_ sure. Until a few minutes ago.

_Katniss Everdeen agreed to marry Peeta Mellark_.

And as if it couldn't get any worse, they both look rather miserable about it.

_Why the hell did they do it?_

Her voice was shaking as she choked out the fateful word, and I don't have to know Mellark all that well to realize that she must have broken three hearts with those three letters. He graces the cameras with that big white smile I'd wanted to wipe off his face more times than I can possibly count, but his eyes hold the same stupid heartbroken look that used to make me shun all reflective surfaces while she was cooped up with him in that damn cave, or curled up on that lovesea,t or now that...

_...she's been forced to the engagement_.

In the Capitol.

I couldn't have stopped it, and can't do a single fucking thing about it, not on this blasted town square in District Twelve where I'm just her _cousin_ and _why the hell should I even be pissed about it?_ So I just close my eyes as if that could block the fact that the world just crashed on my head once again, and keeps pressing down, heavier and blacker and more hopeless than the tons of coal that bury me down in the Capitol's mines.

I won't breathe freely until I tear her from their grasp.

* * *

><p>I couldn't even talk to her right after she returned, not with the swarm of reporters circling like flies around the No-Longer-So-Star-Crossed Engaged Couple. Now they are finally gone, and it's Sunday, the day when one Star-Cursed Cousin can still try to grasp at the last ray of hope.<p>

Hardly waiting for the first light of dawn, I rush to our place, only to find it empty but for a wooden arrow pointing towards the lake. _Good_. The further from the fence I meet her, the better. The walk should give me time to calm my nerves, but I find myself almost running and all too soon bursting through the door of the cabin.

Sure enough, Catnip is waiting there. My last-second attempt to wipe my face clean of all feeling has obviously failed, because her eyes widen as she takes in my expression, and she blurts out something that instantly freezes me on the spot.

"Snow threatened to kill you if I don't do it."

"What...?" I'd never have guessed that a single sentence from _her_ could feel like a punch in the face and kick in the balls all at once, but this one just… somehow… did.

Catnip lowers herself down on the edge of the fireplace and buries her face in her hands.

_Shit, and I was stupid enough to think I'd never feel worse in my life back when she said her_ yes.

Not really trusting my legs to hold me up, I sink to one knee in front of her. Then I gently pry her hands off her face and lift her chin with one finger to look in her eyes, but she tries to hide her fear and pain behind her lashes.

"So you agreed to do it because of _me, _Catnip?"_Damn, even my voice sounds about as horrible as this feels._ "What the hell makes you think I wouldn't much rather die than let you ruin your life for me?" _I know I'd much rather die than see her like this_. The idea of her suffering because of _me_ is just too fucking unbearable.

"Nothing. Nothing at all. I know you too well," she mutters, eyes still tightly closed. "That is why I had to prevent it, and not ask you to kindly let me, you stubborn..." I don't know what name she'd call me, just that I'd sure deserve it, but she swallows it and changes direction. "Besides, it's not only you. Maybe they'd kill your family too. And mine. Prim..."

_Okay, I was wrong. This idea is too fucking unbearable_. Thinking about it for five seconds is way too much, but luckily, Catnip doesn't give me more, and jolts me back to reality when she clasps my numb hands and squeezes them tightly.

"Gale, I'm not going through with it."

_So the hope is not gone_.

"I just wanted to buy us some time. Let's run away. You said we could do it."

_I did. But when _you_ say it, I really believe it_.

Propelled by the sudden, wild rush of joy and faith, I wrap my arms around her and all but jump to my feet, lifting her up and spinning her through the air. When I finally find my voice, I can think of only one relevant thing to say.

"I love you, Catnip."

Maybe it was relevant, but also wrong. Frightened and confused, even more so than after _that kiss_, she gasps for breath and struggles for words. I shouldn't have told her. She has enough to deal with as it is, even without me messing with her feelings.

"I... I know."

_Looks like it's not going to change_.

"Catnip..." _What would I tell her if my voice didn't fail me? I'd be damned if I know_. All I know is that this tiny strained answer hurts so much more than it should.

_She knows… does it mean I can still hold her, or that I should back off and give her space, like I've done for years?_ Letting her go is not an option I'd choose willingly, but I try it just in case she preferred it.

Obviously, she doesn't, because she throws herself right back at me, grabbing my coat and pressing her face against my chest, instantly removing all the choking weight of doubt. _Catnip, as long as I can hold you, it doesn't matter what you can't say._

"I'm... I'm sorry," she mutters. "And you know... you know what you mean to me..."

Gently, I coax her a tiny bit away from me, hoping to catch a glimpse of her eyes. The confusion is still there, and it's contagious.

"No, Catnip, sometimes I just don't," I say softly, maybe more to myself than to her and regret it at once. _Just give her a break, idiot_. "But don't let me make it harder for you." Closing my eyes, I lean down and kiss her forehead, as chastely as I can bring myself to, careful not to bewilder her any further. _She said she would run away with me. That's what matters most now. Then we'll have all the time in the world._

She shakes her head a little, as if to clear it, and jumps back to familiar territory. Fight or flight. "We have to tell our families to get ready... and convince Haymitch... and Peeta..."

_What the hell? Sorry, Catnip, I just somehow keep forgetting about them when I'm alone with you._

"You want to take _them_ along?"

"Gale, I have to. I owe my life to them. If I escaped, Snow would go after them to get his revenge. I can't allow that."

Well, in Mellark's case it might as well be the other way around, but anyway, that shouldn't have come as a surprise. They belong to her life now. "Right... I'm not telling you I like the idea..." I begin, cupping her face to keep her from averting her eyes in disappointment, "but I understand you can't let them down. You don't let people down." And I'd put up with worse for her sake.

"I do all the time," she says softly, with a bit of guilt flashing in her eyes, and locks her hands behind my neck. _Catnip, don't guilt-trip yourself for me. Please_.

"Only if you can't help it," I say and gently squeeze her in my arms to assure her we can drop the subject. _She told me we are running away together. What more could I want?_

_We are running away together_. "So we have our mothers, Prim, Rory, Vick, Posy, Peeta and Haymitch... that's a lot of people." _Damn, it's beginning to sound ridiculous. The kids outside in this winter…_

And she obviously realizes that too, but her eyes are alight with urgency. "We have to try, Gale. There's already an uprising going on in Eight, our position is getting more dangerous every day..."

"Uprising in Eight?" _Uprising. Uprising in Panem. Now I've been waiting to hear this even longer than…_

"Yes... we have to..." she begins, but I'm hardly listening.

"Uprising already going on," I repeat slowly as all the possibilities and old foolish hopes assume more definite shapes in my head. _Uprising_. "Catnip, then we have to stay and fight! It is the chance we've been waiting for..."

But she cuts across me. "Are you crazy? People are dying out there Gale! What if..."

"People were dying before as well, Catnip. You saw a few of them." she flinches at this and I quickly embrace her, as if it could make up for pouring salt into her wounds. _It could have been her too…_ "_I'm sorry." I truly am. Why the hell do I have to keep hurting her?_ "But we have to stop it once and for all."

Then they won't hurt her anymore. _Damn, I can't let them hurt her anymore_. But I also can't keep her here in this hell. "You take everyone and run. I'd trust you to protect them. I'll stay here. I have to get back at them. For everything they've done to you... to us... to everyone..."

She presses tighter against me, and I don't want to release her, not ever. "Gale, no. I can't let you..."

Her words aren't helping so I silence her with a kiss that, unfortunately, makes the idea of letting her out of my reach again even more unbearable. But even more necessary. We have to be_ free_ to kiss all we want.

"Catnip, the only person in the world I never wanted to fight against is you. But I can't run if there's a slightest chance to win." We couldn't run forever anyway.

"Do you believe there is?" Her eyes shine with tears and emotion and a spark of faith, of hope we could hold onto together. We can win a future only if we win freedom first. Under the Capitol, _we_ are nothing.

But the Capitol_ can_ fall. I believed it…

"Ever since I can remember."


	8. ThreeQuarters Dead

**CF 3: ****Three-Quarters Dead**

Fight or flight?

Katniss can't stay, not with everything that threatens her here.

But could I run, if there was finally some chance do something real against the Capitol? To bring it down along with all the fences and Peacekeepers and screens and games?

To win freedom?

For her, freedom is the only hope, whether beyond the fence or after its destruction.

For me, there is no Katniss without freedom, and no freedom without Katniss. It's as easy and as difficult as that. Leaving with her could mean both at once. But it would also mean abandoning everyone and everything else under the Capitol's rule.

_Could I do it? Could we?_

_We'_ve parted before slipping through the fence, undecided and uncertain, full of unspoken confusion and unnecessary bitterness, both too damn stubborn to admit our own doubts.

Letting her escape and winning a better world for her to return to would be the best option. Unfortunately, with our mothers and the kids and Peeta and Haymitch, all unused to wilderness, escape is implausible and risky at best... And with all the poverty and starvation, uprising here is implausible and risky at best. People are hard pressed enough to survive the winter, even without fighting…

But if there's already something going on in Eight, why not here? _Why the hell not here?_

I'd bet some of our Peacekeepers would even side with us… and without them and the fence, people won't be so dependent on the wages from the mines…

But the Capitol could send in reinforcements... hovercrafts...

I'd bet my own life to win freedom... _but could I bet anyone else's, against the wretched odds in District Twelve?_

_Hell, when did it all become such a clusterfuck? Days ago? Months ago? Seventy-five years ago?_

The chaos reeling in my head contrasts sharply with the unnatural calm of town streets that stretch empty and lifeless as I make my way to Cray's with a turkey I'd routinely shot along the way. Now with my crappy but better-than-nothing wage from the mines and Catnip helping out Mother when I'm not looking, selling it is not all that necessary, but Catnip (luckily!) never stops at Cray's on her own, and he has to be well supplied to be charitable. We shouldn't forget about ol' Cray, or else he forgets about us, and that could lead to a shitload trouble, especially considering what we'll be trying to pull sometime in near future...

And maybe, just maybe, when the right time comes, he'd consider the idea those wild turkeys wouldn't be rare merchandise if the fence wasn't there at all…

I knock, like so many times before, and the door opens immediately, without the usual pause and shuffling sound of Cray's lazy footsteps.

* * *

><p>This guy is not Cray, he's not buying the turkey, and he sure as hell isn't buying my excuses.<p>

Everything I say can be used against me, and soon enough it is, because the Peacekeepers - some new ones with blank, closed helmets, have swarmed out and surrounded me before I could process exactly how deep into shits I'd stepped. All my long years of poaching couldn't have picked a worse time to catch up with me. I walked straight into a snare, and looks like I've already lost my bet.

_Will it be a nice and clean bullet in the head, or have they come up with something nastier?_

* * *

><p>Whipping.<p>

Looks like the old-fashioned shows are back.

As if the fucking Games weren't enough.

Feeling cold and bound and humiliated is a familiar experience that's happened too damn often on this dismal town square since Catnip's reaping.

Now it just got physical. And the pain will follow.

**Crack…**

_Pain. What happens here but pain?_

**Crack…**

The screen is dead now, and I'm live entertainment.

**Crack…**

At least for a while.

**Crack…**

The faces of the crowd are swimming before me, and I recognize nobody, nothing but horror.

_At least Catnip stayed behind..._

**Crack…**

_... she can't see me like this._

She shouldn't have to watch my pain like I watched hers.

**Crack…**

They say screaming makes it hurt less, but I'm not giving the bastard the satisfaction.

_No, not in a…_

**Crack…**

_… __fucking…_

**Crack…**

_… __million…_

**Crack…**

Maybe I'd scream now, but I can't breathe enough to try.

**Crack…**

Pain.

But knowing that all the pain is coming down on me now, and Catnip is safe, makes it almost bearable.

**Crack…**

_I hope she's not watching… or Prim… or…_

**Crack…**

_... damn, I hope Mother is not watching..._

Sure, I can't see her here. But my head must have snapped down, all I see is red and white.

**Crack…**

_... Rory and Vick shouldn't be watching..._

**Crack…**

The red is swirling and spreading, more and more red. I'm used to seeing my blood, in cuts and scratches, but not this much, not so much it goes blurry before my eyes.

_I can't die on them..._

**Crack…**

_... I have be around to make sure they won't end up just like me._

Bleeding out on this goddamned square, from their hearts or from their backs.

**Crack…**

_Posy shouldn't even know._

_Shouldn't even know this kind of pain can exist_.

**Crack…**

_But there's no way to shelter her, not in this world._

**Crack…**

Nothing but red now, growing black at the edges.

_I will never see her grow up._

**Crack…**

Dizzy red and choking pain and cracking pain… how many now?

_I've failed them all, and it hurts more than the fucking whip_.

**Crack...**

Someone is talking, shouting, but the words are jumbled...

Crash and silence.

_Is it over?_

**Crack…**

No.

Pain.

He's not stopping until I'm dead.

**Crack…**

_Catnip will take care of them..._

**Crack…**

_Catnip_.

I've failed her.

I've failed Catnip.

**Crack…**

I'd fight and bleed to death for her, but here I am… bleeding out for fucking nothing.

**Crack…**

_Will he take care of her…?_

**Crack…**

_Hell it's me who should take care of her._

No blood and pain should stop me.

**Crack…**

Not even this.

_I should be watching her back…_

I see only black.

**Crack…**

_… __not getting my own flayed to bloody shreds._

The pain won't stop… not until I'm dead.

**Crack…**

The world is pain and black..._ and where the hell has all the light gone…?_

**Crack…**

_She's gone… I failed her… Catnip…_

**Crack…**

The darkness consumes me along with the pain, and I'm almost gone too.

**Crack…**

_I'm… sorry…_

**Crack…**

_I… love… you... Ca-_

**Crack…**

…

* * *

><p>…<p>

The world is pain and black and more pain.

Burning, searing pain.

Something cold… soothing… pain…

Pain, duller now, but pain…

Voices.

Pain. Sharp. Prickling. Gone.

…

The world isn't, I'm floating through nothingness.

...

The world is blurry at the edges.

...

The world is…

… lips...

On mine. Pressing. Pulling away.

Light. Face. _Her_ face.

"Hey, Catnip."

Her face, black at the edges, but no, that's just her hair.

"Hey, Gale."

Her face, deathly white and smeared with red. _Wrong_. She shouldn't be bleeding. I can bleed to death…but not her, not Catnip, Catnip shouldn't be bleeding, not anymore… not here… not in this place… she shouldn't even be here…

"Thought... thought you'd be already gone."

She should be gone... I want my Catnip to be here, but I don't. Not when I'm flogged to pieces, not when I can't fight for her… not when she could be somewhere better… _is there a better place left?_

Smile. A pained smile, and it hurts, even through the haze, through the edge of nothingness, through the blackness closing in again…

"No. I am going to stay here and cause all kinds of trouble."

Trouble… we damn well should cause trouble… together…_ together_…

"Me too."

_What?_

Black. Nothingness.

…

* * *

><p>Healing.<p>

It takes pain and sleep and time, time that hardly matters now that we are trapped. Catnip couldn't run, we wouldn't have been able to run anyway, not after the new Peacekeepers have arrived to patrol and to torture. Not after the fence, buzzing ceaselessly like those damned tracker jackers, imprisoned us here. Catnip had to stay; her chance was gone before she'd considered it, before we've as much as argued about it.

We found out the hard way, and it still hurts.

But the wounds are healing steadily, and sometime, somewhere, someone will pay. For all the pain and the humiliation and the injustice they inflict on us. For everything they forced Catnip to endure.

Now she is tending to the wounds again, and it feels too damn good just because she is touching me, and too damn bad because she shouldn't have to do it.

"Thank you, Catnip," I say. I haven't even thanked her properly yet. _What have I been waiting for? Till all the morphling wears off so that I could be fully conscious for it?_ That wouldn't help anyway, I can never thank her enough.

"Hey, it was nothing," she dismisses it as if I thanked her just for what she did _now_, avoiding my eyes. She can be so exasperating. I gently tip her chin upward with one finger and lock our gazes.

"I meant thank you for saving my life." I can never thank her enough, but I can try. I'll keep trying till I die, and when I finally do, it better be for a good reason. _Why, why the hell did she have to…?_ Even thinking about it hurts more than all my wounds combined. "For taking that lash instead of me."

Catnip squirms, and her voice shakes as she stutters, "I… I couldn't let them kill you, could I?"

Dying seems too easy compared to seeing the reminder of her sacrifice etched red and raw on her beautiful face.

But she continues quickly, not giving me a chance to answer. "Thank you for saving me too. From running away like a miserable coward. If…" her voice trails off.

No, Catnip isn't a coward. Furthest from it. There was nowhere to run anyway. Flight was no longer an option, not after the Capitol tightened its grasp to choke us for good. Only fight remained and _she_ fought. Again.

She stood in the path of that damn whip. _For me_. It's too terrible to think about, too overwhelming to deal with, too meaningful to put into words.

Moving my hand up to her cheek, I lightly run my thumb along the closed gash, desperately wishing I could somehow undo the damage, somehow turn back time. "No, Catnip. You are the bravest person I know. That's one of the reasons why I love you so much."

Trying to articulate at least a fraction of what I feel was a wrong idea, like always. Surprise flashes over her face, and her one and only fear steals her voice again, ushering in the guilt. But her unspoken answer, so perfectly evident in what she had done, now shines brightly in her wide eyes and flushed cheeks, so I just lean down to kiss her. _We are not good with words anyway_.

She melts against me without hesitation, and her silent lips tell me everything I've ever needed to know. She is mine and I am hers. Anything else is unthinkable.

But the Capitol specializes in turning the unthinkable into reality, and however tightly we hold onto each other, we are backed in a trap with no escape. In a world where nothing, _nothing_ is right anymore, all I can offer her is momentary solace, but she clings to me as if it was exactly what she needed, and I don't want to let her go, not while Capitol can steal her away, not ever.

We have to find some way to defeat them, before they defeat us. Next time, they won't make do with three-quarters dead.


	9. Intoxicating Despair

**CF 4: ****Intoxicating Despair**

Every time I delude myself with the idiotic belief that the Capitol has already reached the limit of its cruelty, I'm proved wrong. As usual, the new dose of sick sad news crackles from the TV screen, this time in the form of a simple announcement about the so-damn-highly-anticipated rules of the Third Quarter Quell.

_Tributes will be reaped from the existing pool of Victors_.

In District Twelve, it means one thing.

The very worst.

Katniss is going back to the Arena.

The image of her standing reaped on the stage for the _second_ time has sometimes replaced the memories from her first games in my nightmares. Now I know that a vague terror from a dream can't compare to the knowledge that it will certainly come true. What tiny promise of life we had left after everything that happened dissolves, leaving only rage and despair in its wake.

They are going to take her away again and there's not a single thing I can do to stop them. We are trapped. _Catnip_ is trapped by the Capitol.

* * *

><p>When I run up to Katniss's house, I discover that she has already disappeared in blind panic, and I'm left struggling with futile attempts to console Prim and her mother. A wretched task now that our hope had been all but ripped away. By the time we hear the unsteady steps outside, our apprehension becomes almost unbearable. After tearing open the door, I spend a numb, clueless second staring at despair in its purest and most precious form before she stumbles towards me, a bottle of Haymitch's liquor still precariously gripped in her hand,<p>

"I'm so sorry, Catnip," I whisper, catching her. "We could've run if I weren't so damn stupid." But I was, and the residual pain in my back still reminds me of that. Maybe, just maybe we could still have slipped...

Katniss shakes her head and lets it fall against my shoulder.

"No… t'was too late already…no run… gotta fight…" she slurs with heartbreaking resolve. "Fight…"

Her knees buckle and I embrace her tighter, holding her like the most precious treasure, a treasure I could never bear to lose. I wish I could just take her as she is and run, somewhere, anywhere far away from this accursed place.

But there's nowhere to run, not further than to the buzzing fence.

Fight is the only option.

Fight is inevitable.

And once again, I won't be able to fight with her.

* * *

><p>But I can help her prepare, at least a little.<p>

Katniss, Peeta and Haymitch start a rigorous training to increase their chances, and I join them on my free Sundays, sharing the most difficult snaring tricks, suggestions on tactics and observations about the ways of hunters and prey.

But still, something about all the effort seems a little futile… this Games shouldn't be as much about setting traps as about escaping the trap that is the Arena. It's the Capitol they'll really be fighting, not the other Victors.

The Capitol is the enemy.

If they've already fooled it once, could they possibly win again?

I wish it were somehow possible to snare the whole damn city.

* * *

><p>Hanging around with Catnip's fellow Victors proves easier than I'd anticipated, and any awkwardness usually disappears when we get to work. Even talking business with Peeta is bearable, especially since the sideways glances he casts me are more thoughtful than hurt or hateful. I've never exactly dared to ask Katniss what she's told him about us, if anything at all, and what's going on between them. But when I see them together now and recognize how much Catnip wants to save him even without any suspicious involvement, I wholeheartedly wish for them both to make it out again.<p>

Delly Cartwright sometimes appears after our training sessions and does a remarkably good job of distracting Peeta with her bright smiles and amiable chatter. Catnip seems perfectly oblivious of that, but I couldn't be more grateful to Delly. If Peeta can seek solace in an old friend, Katniss can do the same without remorse. Right?

Truth is, we don't behave as very proper friends when we disappear from everyone's sight to seize every small chance for a few heated and precious moments alone, but neither of us is complaining and nobody else has to know...

* * *

><p>But the weeks and Sundays fly by too quickly, and time of parting inexorably draws near.<p>

On the eve of the reaping, I hastily clean up after the mines and hurry up to the Victors' Village, only to find Katniss absent again.

She's been holding out heroically, not letting the Capitol daunt her spirit and resolve to train, but now that the realization of their threat lurks just around the corner; she must have escaped to drown her fears again.

When her unsteady feet finally stomp up the steps to the house, and when I rush to open the door for her, she throws herself into my arms, clinging to me for dear life and making no attempt to resist when I lift her up and carry her inside. There she shows no signs of releasing her desperate grip, so I just sit down on the couch and hold her in my lap, stroking her hair as she buries her head in my chest and proceeds to soak my shirt with tears. The hot drops seeping to my skin hurt as if they were blood oozing straight from my heart, and I rack my brain for some plausible way to save her, or at least to console her and give her a little hope.

When the first wave of sobs subsides, she looks up. Her eyes, liquid with dissolved hopes and dreams, are gloomy like pools reflecting an overcast sky, but something unmistakable shines in their most profound depths.

"Gale, I…" she begins, uncertainly, as if it was too late, too hard, too painful to say, and maybe it is, because her lips remain parted and still, and I realize I don't need them to _say_ anything aloud. I just need her to _stay with me,_ and that's exactly what I can't get.

Leaning close enough to brush her lips with my own, I whisper, "Shh, I know, Catnip."

_I know,_ and that somehow makes this moment even more painful.

"I know," I repeat, more insistent, more forceful, as if I could make up for every shadow of doubt that's ever darkened our relationship. It's far too late for that, but I'd be damned if I don't at least try. "I don't know how could I ever doubt it. I love you..."

Saying it can't really help her now, but when I hold her like this, maybe for the last time, I can't think of anything else coherently enough. I want, no, I need to tell her that I love her. I need to keep telling her that for the rest of my life, not only until tomorrow, but I'm powerless to resist as she slips her fingers into my hair and pulls me too close to speak or even to breathe. We kiss with frantic passion despite her tears staining our faces, and soon I'm just as drunk as she is, not on the hints of liquor spicing her lips and tongue, but on _her_ alone.

I don't know if I've ever desired her as much as I do now. Probably yes, but I don't have enough blood in my brain to remember anything too clearly. I'm just sure the desire has never been as close to fulfillment as it is now either, with her sitting in my lap and clutching my shirt almost hard enough to rip it, allowing my hands to drift too freely under her clothes and kissing me like there was no tomorrow, because there isn't, not for us. We are closer than ever, and she is losing all control, but she is already claimed and almost gone and taking things too far in her intoxicated state would only bring her pain later… and we aren't alone in the house and we _shouldn't_…

…but she's not stopping, not letting go, and I can't bring myself to either. I want to mold us together and to stay with her forever and to follow her everywhere, even to the Arena or straight to hell… but I'd prefer to bring and follow her to heaven first and she is still kissing me like she wanted me to…

… until, fortunately or perhaps not, she begins to slip away and rests her head tiredly against my shoulder, the alcohol and exhaustion slowly shutting her down. When her body slumps in my embrace, I carefully lay her on the couch to rest, and take few very slow, deep breaths, wishing to be able to jump into a cold shower without having to explain anything to her mother and Prim. They've given us space, either out of politeness or sheer embarrassment, but now I rush to find them so that we can share the last peaceful moments with Katniss together, and so that we'd be all there for her when she awakes.

She is sleeping now, and every slow breath I watch her take is both precious and cursed, because it marks the passage of time, marching to her second reaping.

Her hand in mine is small, warm, and pulsing with life, and I'm dreading the moment when I'll have to let go.


	10. Staying Behind Again

**CF 5: ****Staying Behind Again**

Without a belief to pray, I willed the seconds to stop ticking away, the morning not to come, and the sun not to rise. Prim and Mrs. E were curled together in a large armchair pulled close to the couch, keeping the silent vigil along with me. Katniss was breathing in the darkness of her last relatively free night, and the soft sound must have eventually lulled me to sleep as well.

I awake in an awkward half-sitting position, my head leaning against the armrest of the couch, and back all stiff and sore. Bright rays of the sun, already _too high_ above the horizon, burn into my half-open eyes. The light that should mean hope and life fills me with dread and rage now.

_The day_ has come.

Of course. They are going to take her away _today,_ and there was nothing any of us could have done to stop it, not after the total lockdown on the district, and …

But then gentle fingers comb through my hair, chasing the bitter thoughts away before they can take over my mind.

_She's still here_.

"Catnip?"

"I'm still here," she confirms. The couch creaks as she scoots over to my end, gently pressing her other hand against my cheek and sliding my head into her lap.

I clasp her hand and press her palm against my lips. She is here. With me. I can't see her face from this angle, but I can feel her touch and inhale her scent, and for a second, it's enough to make me forget the circumstances. Waking near her feels like a dream come true, even if it's not after we'd actually… went far beyond where we'd left off yesterday… which was right-

"Your family will be here soon. Farewell brunch, remember?" she says in a bittersweet tone, interrupting my wandering thoughts and capturing my other _wandering_ hand just in time.

I give her fingers an apologetic squeeze, and squint through the window. "It's that late already?" Tinges of resentment and remorse creep into my voice however hard I try to keep them out.

"I didn't have the heart to wake you." Finally, she bends down, and as our gazes meet, I see my pain reflected in her slightly bloodshot eyes. It seems to grow with every single one of the _please-don't-let-them-be-the-last_ moments we have to share. Catnip closes her eyes to block tears and instead of offering meaningless consolation, our lips meet halfway in a silent kiss.

* * *

><p>The creaking of opened doors only faintly registers through the rushing of blood in my ears, but the high-pitched <em>ewww<em> that reverberates through the room few seconds later is not to be ignored. I pull away from Katniss just in time to catch Posy as she trips over her own little feet and stumbles precariously towards me.

"But we have bwuunch fow eating!" she exclaims.

On any other occasion, I'd be overjoyed that she learned a new _food-related_ word, and from soon-to-be experience too, but now I futilely wish for her _not_ to have had the opportunity. At loss for words, I clasp her in my arms, gently pressing her face into my shoulder to shush her.

_I've failed to save Catnip from the reaping. _Twice_. Would I be able to save my little sister? _Her_ little sister?_

Before Posy protests against the awkward silence, Katniss leans over and kisses her forehead with a loud smack. "C'mon before I eat you too!" Her voice breaks on the words, just a little.

And my heart breaks, just a lot. Because even though Posy is my little sister, and Catnip is Catnip, and she'd never… the thought that _she and I _maybe-perhaps-someday could have a family... if it wasn't for the odds stacked heaven-high and hell-deep against _us_…

The thought is too _tempting_, too idiotic, and too fucking painful to consider now, of all times.

Luckily, Catnip has entertained everyone else who'd gathered just in time to witness the little display, and took the attention away from me.

Vick actually laughs, and our mothers smile tearfully from the doorway. Then Prim and Rory peek in from behind them, looking slightly confused about the cheer.

Seeing everyone together like this, _brought closer by the reaping_, makes it so much better and so much worse at once. My absurd delusions aside, we are a family. All of us.

How incomplete we'll be when Katniss leaves again? Hell, how incomplete will _I_ be?

I look up at her.

Couldn't the sun stay just where it is_,_ slanting through the window and shining on her just like that, crowning her seam-black hair with gold?

Of course not.

There's no stopping the inevitable.

So I just lean into her light and press my lips against her cheek, if only for a second and in all chastity, because our families are looking, cutely disapproving little Posy included. And we wouldn't want to spoil the appetite of the only person, who might, in her childish innocence, actually enjoy that _farewell_ brunch.

* * *

><p><em>Farewell<em>. _Fare-well?_

* * *

><p>Time passes too quickly, and the afternoon comes to bring the first reaping with an absolutely certain conclusion.<p>

They are going to take _her_ away again.

Nobody has bothered to pull a charade with a reaping ball full of slips. There's only one in the girl's ball.

Bearing the name Katniss Everdeen.

Just like last year, there _really_ was only one with the name of her sister. Numbers and odds don't matter, it always comes down to one slip, one single slip of paper is enough to send someone's world crashing down.

It will be _our_ world, for the second time in a row. There's no escaping it.

Still, the expectation doesn't make the moment when Catnip answers the call and walks up to the stage any easier. Dread is obviously slowing her steps, but once again, up she goes, leaving beyond grasp, beyond reach, beyond help. I have to force my body not to move, not to run to her, not to clasp her in my arms and shout I'll never let them take her away. The effort makes all my muscles shake and my nails dig into my palms, the pain preventing me from losing grip on the nightmare the Capitol calls _reality_.

Of course I can't do it. Something that stupid and _selfish_ would only disgrace her.

Up she goes, stoic and brave. Onto the stage.

Away.

Just like before, her gaze sweeps over the square, over the fence, away and beyond, seeking a last glance to where our freedom lies.

I stare unwaveringly up where my heart lies, up at _her_. I see her courage, her determination to fight, her desire to return there.

_Will we ever meet at our place again?_

* * *

><p>Effie's voice cuts through my thoughts, announcing the male tribute. She seems to hesitate slightly as she pronounces Haymitch's name.<p>

I'm not surprised at all when Peeta volunteers for him. Of course Haymitch with his contacts would be more useful as a mentor. They'd probably decided on that long ago. But still, I wish _I_ could go instead, even more than the last time. I'd save Peeta, just like I know Katniss wants to save him in the Arena. And I'd gladly die for few more _guaranteed_ days with her.

But I'm not a Victor in any sense of the word, and all I can do is watch him take place beside Katniss.

Unless they somehow repeat their miracle, all I have left with her are a few more minutes.

However hard I try, the idea refuses to sink in.

_Minutes_.

How on earth am I going to let her go?

* * *

><p>But I don't have to worry about that.<p>

The Peacekeepers cart them right away, straight to the car, without allowing us the last goodbye.

Maybe it's even better that way.

I don't want any goodbye I tell her while I live to be the last. That would be… unthinkable.

_What would have to happen to make it possible for us to meet again?_

When the thought that absolutely _anything_ would be worth it enters my mind, I feel like a monster for not discarding it at once.

But Catnip is gone.

They took her away again, and they must be hell-bent on _not_ letting her return. Unthinkable times call for unthinkable measures.

Unfortunately or not, all the solutions swarming in my mind also happen to be impossible.

All I can do is to believe she'll somehow make it.

Because without that, what else would I have left?


	11. Blackened

**CF 6: ****Blackened**

She's gone.

My Catnip is gone.

It doesn't take long for the shock of her absence to give way to the anger only she could quell.

But she's no longer here to disperse the stormclouds, because the Capitol has taken her to their Quell, to snuff out every bit of hope she represented.

They have her in their clutches, and it's driving me madder than ever before. I have to dismiss one far-fetched rebellious scheme after another.

Because even if there was something to be done here, wouldn't it just reduce her chances of survival in the Capitol to zero?

* * *

><p>I count the hours until I'll be able to see her again, and feel damn sick for doing so because I'll be seeing her during the presentation of tributes.<p>

On a chariot, being paraded through the Capitol.

I shouldn't want to see her there, but I can't help it.

I need to see her, just to know she's still alive, and as well as she can possibly be.

When she finally does appear, she's holding Mellark's hand again, because that's what she does in the Capitol, doesn't she?

The sight sends an unpleasant icy stab through my gut, and I give myself a mental slap immediately after.

How can I even be jealous of a guy that will most probably try to sacrifice himself for Katniss before she gets a chance to sacrifice herself for him?

I shudder at the thought and grit my teeth furiously. Even though I'm confident that she doesn't love him the way she loves me, I know she'd never really live it down if he died for her. I don't want him to die for her either. We both hate debts.

And besides, they shouldn't even have to think about trying to save each other from certain death. They should never have been put into such a situation in the first place. That rankles much more than the fact that they choose to cling together in their predicament.

Futilely as always, I wish she could cling to me instead – for support, for safety, for love, for anything she needs. Forever.

But that's impossible now. Our forever might as well have ended yesterday. They are gone beyond my reach, and hopefully, _not_ beyond the point of no return.

I simply refuse to entertain the idea that I'll never hold my Catnip in my arms again. It's too fucking unthinkable.

Katniss can't be lost to their Games, and since I know she thinks the same about Peeta, there has to be _some_ way out. I can't do anything to find it right now, but hopefully, Haymitch will somehow help them repeat the miracle from the last year..

_If not…_

After gritting my teeth again, I breathe deeply and focus on Katniss. _Why not savor every single second of being able to see her?_

I must say, her stylist did a damn good job again. Her form-fitting overall makes her look like a single ember of the loveliest shape, with ever-changing reds and oranges seeping from within and glimmering over the dark surface. Above her braided hair, she wears a crown, shaped like the one she'd received as a Victor. It's not made of gold, though, but some black metal that glows red-hot like a poker that's been left in a fireplace for too long. The glow casts flickering shadows on her face, dramatically painted, but still recognizable as hers and so fiercely beautiful it burns my eyes.

She is no longer the Girl on Fire.

She _is_ Fire.

Hot and deadly and wonderful and uncontrollable and so irresistible I'd clasp her in my embrace without a second's hesitation, even if she were to burn me to death.

She's herself and nobody can change her.

But they still can try to quench her, and once again, I'm left with hoping that they won't succeed.

I clench my fists so hard my knuckles creak, wishing to hold a weapon that could prevent her from going to the arena. To prevent _everyone_ from going to the arena, ever.

The camera switches to President Snow, who graciously repeats why they are _supposed_ to go there.

Too bad I have _nothing_ against him, just a shitload of hatred and empty fury.

* * *

><p>The only weapon I have left is a pickaxe.<p>

Imagining the president's face in the coal seam even greatly increases my productivity during the next few days. I'm not a stylist, but in my unprofessional opinion, a pickaxe through the forehead would suit him just fine.

And with the fence on and no other resources available, I might as well work as hard as I can.

As it is, there's nothing else I can do. I have only the mines left. No hunting, no woods, no Hob, no freedom… My family is swimming before my eyes in a haze of exhaustion from the extra shifts I need to take, but the knowledge I do it for them makes it bearable. I have to provide for them to the best of my ability, and ensure their future at all costs.

Life has to go on.

Catnip would kick my ass if I dared to think anything else, even for a second.

She has to be strong now, stronger than ever, and same goes for the rest of us, the watchers left behind.

* * *

><p>Luckily, Prim and Mrs. E are still living off Katniss' winnings, and have more than enough to meet their needs. But I fear their resources won't last very long, not with all the starving, sick and flogged seeking their help every day. They open their doors and their hearts to help, striving to heal this dying wreck of a district that the Capitol keeps bleeding to death day by day.<p>

I see Prim only once, flitting between two injured like an angel, her innocent little hands flowing with blood as she _heals,_ and her eyes dry and shining with concentration.

Rory visits the Everdeens under some pretense or other every day, and often arrives even after I drag my sore carcass back from the mines. I have to kick my mind in the teeth for every half-formed variation of _I envy him for being able to comfort the girl he so-damn-obviously loves_.

I can't do that, and after getting a much clearer idea of what exactly I'm missing in the past few months, Catnip's absence is even more unbearable than before. She's in the Capitol, and only now I realize how much better has life been when I knew her to be safe, only a few miles of rock and coal above me, breathing clean air. Getting through any shift in the mines was easy when I had the hope of seeing her again after.

Now I have nothing left but the fury at being robbed of her again, and the coal dust seeping into my brain and heart, turning them blacker with every endless half-paid hour.

What would happen when I see her again? Would she cast gentle light into the darkness, or act as a spark of fire that starts the combustion?

* * *

><p>As soon as the interview starts, I know the second answer is correct. Looks like Snow might have overplayed his hand by reaping the victors after all. The audience loves their stars, and the victors pretend to love the audience and exploit their feelings to the fullest. And they have nothing to lose anymore, so they aren't reserved about their protests and accusations. The whole is world watching, and eating them right up.<p>

By the time Katniss enters the stage, the Capitolites are already weeping and collapsing and even calling for change.

Do they even realize they are calling for change against themselves?

Probably not, but I prefer it that way.

At the sight of Katniss in her white silk dress, they all but riot.

And so do I.

She's wearing a _wedding_ dress.

However beautiful she is, the image is unbearable. Because if she ever she chooses to get married, Catnip's wedding should have nothing to do with the Capitol, nothing to do with their sick games and dirty stage-lights.

Even Caesar Flickerman looks a bit put out by the display, and hardly manages to calm the audience. "So, Katniss, obviously this is a very emotional night for everyone. Is there anything you'd like to say?" he finally gets out.

Her voice trembles as she speaks, and I wish I could rush there to embrace her. "Only that I'm so sorry you won't get to be at my wedding ... but I'm glad you at least get to see me in my dress. Isn't it just ... the most beautiful thing?"

It is a beautiful thing. But _she_ isn't a _thing,_ and they shouldn't treat and ogle her like one…

My train of thought is derailed when she rises and spreads her arms like white wings, and twirls around. Rings of smoke rise from her skirt and soon she disappears in a cocoon of fire… but before I can as much as gasp for breath, the flames subside to reveal her dress again, this time glistening and blackened like the feathers of a mockingjay.

A mixture of awe and pride overwhelms me for a few seconds, but then gives way to dread.

She made her statement.

Or did she?

Judging by the fleeting glimpse of her face I caught before the flames from the dress engulfed her, she was unaware of the plan. But now she's standing proud, embracing the idea. Coming to terms with her own legend.

What will happen to her now?

Caesar tentatively reaches for her smoldering dress.

"Feathers," he comments. "You're like a bird."

"A mockingjay, I think," she says, and flaps her wings. "It's the bird on the pin I wear as a token."

Of course. And now it's much more than just her token. And she is much more than just a girl with a mockingjay pin, so much more. Not just for me, but for the whole country. The idea is amazing and terrible at the same time.

"Well, hats off to your stylist," says Caesar. "I don't think anyone can argue that that's not the most spectacular thing we've ever seen in an interview. Cinna, I think you better take a bow!"

The camera shifts to the audience. Katniss' stylist, a strikingly normal guy by Capitol standards, rises and bows, with a perfectly calm expression and quiet triumph in his eyes.

I almost wish I could resent him for putting Katniss in more danger than she already is. But… he made her into the Mockingjay… Now she _is_ the symbol of change and she _will_ prevail.

She has to.

Because if she couldn't, who else could?

_Gotta give it to you, man. You are a genius_.

For a fleeting moment, the camera switches focus to Snow's snakelike gaze, grim and disgusting and dangerous.

_And probably very high on Snow's shit-list right now_. _May the odds…_

Impulsively, before I can stop myself, I touch three fingers to my lips and hold them out. From the corner of my eye, I notice Madge already doing the same and one by one, all the people in the square join us in a silent salute. A sign of admiration and thanks.

Hopefully, not a sign of farewell.

Katniss doesn't get to say any more, the audience refuses to quiet down and drowns even the sound of the buzzer. Only when Peeta replaces her on the chair opposite Ceasar and exchanges a few jokes with him, they gradually return their attention to the interview.

After all, they want to know…

"So, Peeta, what was it like when, after all you've been through, you found out about the Quell?" asks Caesar.

"I was in shock. I mean, one minute I'm seeing Katniss looking so beautiful in all these wedding gowns, and the next ..." Peeta trails off.

_You know, Mellark, I can relate_. That was one of the lowest blows the Capitol's dealt us all. Damn, seeing her _happily_ married to him would be more bearable than seeing her suffer and fight for her life in the Games. Again. Especially now that the Capitol must be hell-bent on not letting her win...

"You realized there was never going to be a wedding?" asks Caesar. Peeta takes a while to answer, his eyes darting around. _What the hell is he planning?_

"Caesar, do you think all our friends here can keep a secret?" he says finally.

_Yeah, right, because national television is the best place to exchange secrets._

"I feel quite certain of it," says Caesar.

"We're already married," says Peeta quietly.

My jaw falls open. Hell, I expected a lot of things… but this…

"But ... how can that be?" asks Caesar.

Yeah, I'd fucking love to hear that. And judging by her expression, Katniss would too. Come to think of it, he pretty much contradicted what she got to say. Why the hell?

Does he ever consult his plans with her? Okay, he and Haymitch might have wanted her look surprised last year when he declared his love for her. But now? She shouldn't look surprised at learning she's married, now, should she?

Peeta goes on to explain that they got married in secret, performing only the traditional District Twelve ritual called toasting. Because her mother wouldn't have approved. And we both know that neither would her 'cousin'. And neither would Katniss. And from the times I've seen them together… Peeta no longer looked all _that_ keen himself.

The idea that he's doing this just in order to play the audience and turn them in their favor is insane. But on the other hand, I wish it worked… if the audience wanted to save them both again… Katniss wouldn't try anything stupid to save _only_ him…

But he isn't done yet.

I tune back in just in time to hear the second blast from his verbal bomb go off.

When Caesar remarks that the brief time they (supposedly!) had is better than no time, Peeta says bitterly, "Maybe I'd think that, too, Caesar, if it weren't for the baby."

The audience draws a huge breath, preparing to scream.

So this is what he was going for. And he didn't tell her because he knows she wouldn't have gone along with such a plan. Not with a plan designed to save only _her_. Because that's what it is.

… _if it weren't for the baby…_

The words make me sicker than they should, considering they are just a ploy, just a lie, not real…

_As if Catnip would ever… and with _him_…_

I clench my fists so tightly.

She _never _wanted to… and if she changed her mind, I'd sure as hell know before Mellark did...

Katniss crouches in her seat, hands over her stomach. A gesture of denial that could well be mistaken for protectiveness. When the camera flits to her face, the tears in her eyes more angry than sad, but I doubt anyone in the audience could tell.

"She's always been afraid of having children," Peeta adds, surely voicing both Katniss's thoughts and mine. "For fear of them going to the Games." At this point, there is no more reason to hide any rebellious thought. "But now that she has to go the arena pregnant… she won't let anyone lay a finger on her. Not even me. Not after what it ended up meaning for us."

No more pretending, then. No more star-crossed lovers for the audience. They created and destroyed them themselves.

Would the realization finally sink in?

The audience breaks down in a cacophony of despair. Moaning, shrieking, crying. Some of them even seem to be shouting protests, but words vanish in the general uproar and in the crackling of the speakers.

Then the Capitol anthem blasts, drowning out everything else. All victors rise from their seats but I keep my eyes fixed on Catnip. Where else would I look? This is the last time I can see her before the Games… and after what just happened… I refuse to think about what horrors the arena holds for her.

She reaches for Mellark's hand, and he takes it at once. But before I can spare the gesture a thought, she turns to the other side and offers her hand to the victor from Eleven. Her fingers close around the stump of his arm and don't let go. And once again, everyone else follows her example. Some willingly, some reluctantly, but by the time the anthem finishes, all twenty-four of them are joined in a single chain.

United against the common enemy.

Against the Capitol.

The fuse is already burning brightly, and it's time to spread the fire _everywhere_.

There will be mandatory viewings, effectively lifting the ban on 'loitering' and gathering… the Games might provide enough distraction to exploit the incentive provided by the Victors...

And after what just happened, nothing can make the Capitol angrier with them. We have to make sure their message wouldn't be lost.

It's time to fight.

For all of us.

Finally.


End file.
